by Amber Foxx
He was running close to the exact minute he was supposed to arrive, eight in the morning. Part of his mind yelled at him not to do this, and another part begged him to hurry and get it over with. Get the instruments and Gasser back. In between these demands was brain fog so dense he couldn’t listen to either side of himself. Sylvie had probably set their meeting at this hour just to torture him more. After his abnormal sleep the day before, he’d ended up awake most of the night, playing flutes until the occupants of neighboring rooms complained. Now he was tired again.
As he pulled into the parking lot, the van fell suddenly silent. It rolled to a stop a foot short of full entry into a parking place. What had happened? There was something ominous about the way it ceased all effort, surrendering its life without a cough or a rattle or even a warning light. He tried the key. Nothing. The Aerostar had abandoned him.
What was it Hubert had said that was so serious and expensive? Bloody hell. It must have happened. Jamie got out, turned his phone on, and started to call Hubert, watching himself lock his vehicle as if it mattered. A beep told him he had a message waiting—had to be Mae or Wendy. Mae, he hoped.
A small hand reached from behind him and grabbed his phone, ending the call just as Hubert’s voice came on.
“Let’s see who you’re calling,” Sylvie said with a sly wink. “Telling your girlfriend you’re with me?”
“Fuck, no.” He had talked. He’d forgotten. It didn’t hurt, but he still sounded husky. Too late. He had to deal with Sylvie. “I was calling a mechanic.”
She looked at the screen and pressed some buttons, apparently sending a text, and dropped his phone into her customary black purse. She wore a kind of cowgirl dominatrix outfit even tackier than the black widow costume: fishnet hose, leather shorts, the black boots and hat, a leather vest over a black silk shirt and a bolo, and black leather gloves. “Let me show you how much you can trust me.” She took the sheathed knife from her purse and handed it to him.
Jamie barely touched it as she put the handle in his palm. Fear burned a small, painful hole in his mental haze without clearing it. Trust her? She’d taken his phone.
“Take it, you big chicken. It hasn’t got spider cooties on it. I want you to know you’re safe. I’m not gonna rob you at knifepoint.” She laughed and winked. “I told you this thing’s a big old joke between me and Joe Wayne.”
If he took it, he’d be carrying a weapon into a public place. Was she trying to get him arrested?
“I can’t.”
She started to slip it in into his belt like she was holstering a gun. The belt she’d bought him. His cheap, fake-leather belt had been stolen from a hotel in Raleigh, and he was stuck wearing her expensive gift. “How I’m gonna make a cowboy out of you, I don’t know.” She stepped back, studied the effect. “Turquoise handle looks nice with that pretty belt. Trust me now?”
“Take it back and give me my phone. I need to call this bloke about my van.”
She sighed and walked to her car, took out a laptop case from the trunk and slammed it shut. “Let’s go inside and talk. I’ll buy you a nice big sticky bun. You look like hell, by the way.”
She seemed to be going after every angle to annoy him, but at least she wanted to go inside. There wasn’t much to be afraid of in a coffee shop. Stealing the phone was probably just harassment, like stealing his toothbrush and his clothes. He handed the knife back. “Put this thing away. Of course I look like hell. You’ve been putting me through it.”
“Ooh, good line for a song.” She dropped the knife back in her purse and aimed briskly toward the entrance, then held the door for him. “How come you never used any of my song ideas? That’d be quite a coup for your sorry career, collaborating with Sylvie Wainwright.”
Unwilling to waste his voice on this game, Jamie remained silent and started toward a table near the door. Sylvie shook her head and led him to a soft sofa with a coffee table full of newspapers in a dim corner away from the other customers. Once he sat, she swaggered off to the counter, returning with two coffees and two muffins.
“It’s vegan, asshole.” She shoved one of the muffins at him. “Trust me. I wouldn’t make poor sensitive you eat anything that came out of an animal. Though you sure do eat, don’t you? You really do look like hell.”
She peeled the paper off her muffin, took a sip of coffee, and set up her laptop. He drank his coffee and tried to eat, but in spite of his hunger he somehow couldn’t do it in her presence. He set the muffin down and forced himself to swallow his one bite. Already he wanted to brush his teeth.
She seemed to stare at his belly, the hint of area forty-eight pushing over the belt, as she said, “You’ve never complemented me on losing a hundred pounds. I now weigh ninety-six.”
“Fine.” He sank back into the sofa. “It’s an achievement.” She’d been one-ninety-six. No wonder he hadn’t recognized her. “I should have said something sooner. Sorry.”
“You certainly should have.” She slid the laptop to him. “Get into your e-mail, babe.”
“Why?”
She took out his phone and scrolled though his contacts. “Let’s see, your manager is Huang, right?”
“What the fuck are you doing with her?”
“Want your instruments? Want your fat old kitty-cat?” Sylvie tapped out a message. “Wendy Huang will be so happy to hear you’re getting everything and heading home.”
“Bloody hell, I thought I was. Where’s my stuff? Where’s my cat?”
“Somebody should pull up with them any minute. Relax.”
He tried, but he couldn’t. What she had texted? He’d have to let Wendy know it hadn’t come from him. He logged into his e-mail, hoping Sylvie wasn’t going to read it, and began a message to his manager.
“Let me have it.” Sylvie scooted closer on the couch, so that their legs met. He felt like he was touching a spider and inched away. She took over the keyboard, changing his message, and then typed something as a reply to someone else who’d contacted him. His parents used e-mail a lot, and he hoped she wasn’t messing with them. He leaned over to look, and she turned the screen away from him.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked.
“Come on, baby, since when do you even read your messages anyway? Or have you changed, Mr. Jellybean?”
“Jeezus. I apologized. What more do you want?” Sylvie ignored him, intent on his e-mail. He looked around the room. No one seemed to be watching them. Maybe their conversation seemed normal. It felt dangerously abnormal. “When is my stuff coming?”
“Any minute.” She shut down the laptop with a smile. “Everything is under control. Eat your muffin.” She poked him in the love handle and sang a line of a song on that subject, chuckling. “You really do look like hell.”
“Leave me alone.”
He’d meant to be assertive, but he sounded petty and ineffective, like a little kid telling off a bully. The situation was all wrong, and yet his brain wouldn’t work to tell him how to get out of it. None of his options seemed right. Grab her purse and get his phone back? She could accuse him of theft. Walk up to the barista and say, Call the police? What if he called the cops on Sylvie just as Gasser was within reach? A wall of ice inside blocked his breath. No. You can’t panic now. Breathe.
“Oh, baby, you are so cute when you get all scared like this. I bet all your girlfriends want to hold you and take care of you.”
At Sylvie’s touch, Jamie jumped to his feet. He couldn’t let himself lose control around her. He had to get a grip. Pacing a few steps away from her, he breathed deeply.
“We can wait outside after I finish this,” Sylvie said, nipping off the edge off her muffin. “So what exactly is wrong with you, anyway? I’ve always wondered, like, if you’re bipolar or what.”
He stopped pacing and stared. “No. Jesus.” His psychiatrist in college had tried out that diagnosis for a while, one of her many over-medicating mistakes. “Right now I’m fucking stressed, and that’s all you need to know.”
“Okay, relax. I was just curious. You are interesting, you know. Did you read my diary?”
He remained standing, drinking the coffee. “Kind of.”
“So you know I was in love with you. Even before you got in shape and got all sexy and everything.”
He nodded.
“And you were so clueless. Still, I can’t believe you didn’t recognize me at Locally Loco.”
“You’ve shrunk.”
“Same face. Same voice. Come on, I was singing those high parts when you had us sing at the pub. I know you think my voice is weird, but could you forget it?”
“My memory sucks. What do you want?”
“I wanted you to come up to me and say ...” She rose and came close, speaking in a false breathy voice. “‘Is that Sylvia Ramirez? Wow, you look great. And you’re in Austin, like you planned! How did it go with the songwriting? So good to see you.’ And I’d say, ‘It went great, Mr. Ellerbee. I’ve written more top ten country hits than you can count on both hands. What have you accomplished, Mr. Ellerbee?’ And you’d say, ‘Nothing much. Nothing like you have, Sylvia.’ ”
“Jesus. So I didn’t fucking recognize you at ninety-six pounds. You could have said something. You didn’t have to steal my instruments and stalk me.”
“Is that what you think I did? You need some straightening out, big time.” She closed her laptop in its case, then gulped the last of her coffee and took one more bite of her muffin before dropping the uneaten half in the cup. “Let’s wait outside. The driver should be here.”
As they emerged into the sun from the darkness of the coffee shop, Sylvie looked both ways as if she were going to cross the street, but led Jamie to the section of parking lot behind the shop. “Get the facts straight. I recognized your stuff. I bought it back. I didn’t steal it. I’m your former student who loves your new music now that I found you again. I didn’t stalk you. I went to your shows. As a fan.”
The story seemed plausible again, in spite of her claim to be a good little spy. It made more sense than Sylvie being the thief. Still, he knew it was wrong, because of Gasser. “Then what the fuck were you doing in Oklahoma when I got lost? That’s where you took my cat.”
“Somebody I know could’ve found him.”
“Nah. Don’t buy it. You’ll think this is really Santa Fe, but I actually do have a friend who’s psychic—”
Sylvie sniffed. “Santa Fe all right.”
“She’s good. Saw my cat at Joe Wayne’s place. I didn’t have a detective after you.” He waited to see if she’d be relieved and admit the truth, but she seemed instead to be recalculating, her narrowed eyes following the movements of her mind. He said, “You can stop defending yourself like you’re in court.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing? What do you know about court? I bet you’ve never been there except for a speeding ticket.”
He hadn’t. Why did she make it sound like a shortcoming? With a twisted smile at him, Sylvie took out her phone. She made a call, pacing along the strip of shade at the back of the building “Where are you? ... No, not tomorrow. I need to get him his stuff today. He’s got a show in New Orleans tomorrow.” She covered the phone, said to Jamie, “Diego. Guy that works for us.” She spoke into the phone again. “All right. I guess we’ll have to come get it now. But I’m docking your pay.” She punched the end button and jammed her phone into her jacket pocket.
Jamie knew what was coming. “Fuck.”
“He has to stay home with a sick kid. I guess I should have been nicer, but we’re gonna have to go way out in the country, and that’s a pain.”
Jamie felt drained, as if he’d been swimming at sea for hours only to have the shoreline move away from him. “How far?”
“It’s not that bad. About an hour’s drive.”
Alone with her. “Can’t anyone else bring it?”
“I’m afraid not.”
I’m a frayed knot. He was. “Fuck.”
“What’s the big deal? It’s just time. You’re still getting your things back. You never would have seen any of it again without me. You know that, don’t you? That kid would have sold it off a piece here, a piece there, to six or eight different people, and by the time the police found him, if they ever did, he wouldn’t have had anything left.”
She started walking toward her car. Jamie hesitated. He shouldn’t get in with her. He stopped.
“You’re lucky,” Sylvie said. “This is quicker and cheaper for you. No waiting for stuff to go through court, with your prized possessions being held as evidence for months while they make the case and go through the trial.”
“You’re making this up.”
“How would you know?” She unlocked her car. “Welcome to life with Joe Wayne. Court is my second home.”
“Sorry to hear that.” Jamie felt a touch of pity for her, as he had when he first read about Joe Wayne in that tabloid. Nonetheless, he backed away from her car, hoping the van would start. “I’ll follow you.”
Her reply was sing-song and teasing. “I don’t trust you.”
“You have my phone.” Fear seized him when he said it. “I can’t call the police. And I don’t know where we’re going, so I have to follow you. But then I want to put my things in my van and drive away.”
She grinned. “If you sit with me, I’ll let you hold my knife.”
His voice shook. “I don’t want to hold your fucking knife.”
“So you can feel safe.” Arch and flirtatious, she winked. “Anyway, I saw you pull in. Your engine’s dead. You were calling a mechanic, remember?”
As soon as he was in her car and moving, Jamie wished he’d gotten his toothbrush from the van. He could feel the obsession nagging at the bottom of his brain, clogging his already cloudy thinking. Mae had told him not to get in a car with Sylvie ... but it might be all right. This bloke Diego would be there, and he liked Gasser. Sylvie had planned to have Diego deliver Gasser and the instruments. It wasn’t like she’d tried to force him at knifepoint into her car, almost the opposite. She’d grabbed the phone out of jealousy, asking if he was calling a girlfriend, and she’d got into his e-mail to mess with his contacts for some reason. Maybe looking for women. She was peculiar and invasive, but she wasn’t trying to kill him. She might—it was an appalling thought—hope to have sex with him.
Sylvie put a country CD in, turned the volume up loud, and tossed her sheathed knife into his lap. “Seriously, chicken-man. You can hold it all the way.”
Reflexively, he dropped it, shifting as far from her as he could. At least she wasn’t going to stab him, but she kept pressing the bloody thing onto him. What was that about? He stared at her hands on the wheel. A shot of adrenaline lifted his brain fog. She was wearing gloves. And she wanted his fingerprints on that knife. Why?
She took the knife and shoved it back into her purse, which she kept on the floor between her knees. Parts of the trap snapped into place. She’d heard Hubert answer. She knew Jamie hadn’t called a girlfriend, which meant she wanted his phone for some other reason. He couldn’t grab it back now without causing an accident. The delayed delivery had been a lie, too, the conversation with Diego a fake-out. There had been no one on the other end of that call. Was she even taking Jamie to get Gasser and his instruments? What kinds of messages had she sent his contacts? Don’t worry if you don’t see me for a while?
Chapter Thirty
“You’re awfully quiet,” Sylvie said, as city gave way to suburbs and malls.
Every trace of brain fog had dried up. Jamie was alert beyond fear. Vigilance covered his underlying dread like a sheet of thin ice over a bottomless lake. Intuition told him to save his voice and stay out of her game as much as possible. Should have thought of that days ago.
She prodded again. “Don’t you want to reminisce about old times?”
“No.”
“Jesus, Ellerbee, I’m doing you a favor. You could be friendly. You’re getting your stuff back. I paid for it. Do you have any idea h
ow much it cost?”
“Fuck, yeah. I bought it the first time.”
“Don’t get snippy. I suspect I’m doing better financially than you are. You ought to be grateful.”
“Jeezus I get it—you’re more successful than I am.” His throat started to burn and his temper to fray. The resolution not to let her get to him had lasted five seconds. He tried to pull back. “You can put down the fucking hammer.”
“You still don’t really see me, do you?”
“What in bloody hell have I missed? You’re thin and rich and your husband’s famous.”
“Joe Wayne Brazos is a cheating son of a bitch.”
“But you make money whether or not he’s faithful. I bet you make more when he’s not. Helps sell the bloody songs about it.”
Sylvie stared at him with her little weasel eyes, then looked at the road again and half smiled. “Good shot, Jellybean.” She put her hand on his thigh and squeezed, giving him a chill. “But you missed. No one’s ever known he had a wife to cheat on. You ever been married?”
“No.”
She ran her gloved fingertips along his leg, the sound of the leather on his jeans as disturbing as nails on a blackboard. “I thought you and The Savage were a sure thing.”
He pushed her hand off. “We lived together.” The words came out heavy, cracking the ice and letting a leak of cold water into his heart. He didn’t want to talk about Lisa. Another failure. “Didn’t get married.”
“So what happened? Who cheated?”
“No one. I quit teaching and went into music.”
The broken hip without health insurance had been the last straw. He had dared to jump off a cliff financially, but he hadn’t counted on falling off one physically, too. Lisa had wanted to marry a man who could provide for a family, not live out his fantasies regardless of the cost.
“So she dumped you because you didn’t make enough money.” Sylvie sparkled. “I guess I cursed you good.”
“Yeah. Broke up with Lisa and broke both legs. Your fucking dream come true.”